I had a very weird dream this morning. More intense and cooler than usual.

So, Earth was dying, and a few select people were put on an auto-pilot spaceship, on a way to another habitable planet. The ship’s interior was emulating Earth’s natural look (mountains, rivers, etc), and there was a bright sun too. Kind of like a mini Dyson Sphere.

A few hundreds of years later, there were a few thousands of us. Resources were scarce, so we were teamed-up in small groups, to protect them. Violence would erupt if someone from another group would try to steal our stuff.

On top of all that, some technology from the “old world” would survive. There was this guy, who had acquired 4-5 fembots, and he was addicted to them. Basically, having sex with them would trigger a feeling similar to recreational drugs + orgasm (fembots could release some chemicals that would enter the bloodstream fast), and that made them irresistible and addictive. The ultimate “high,” I suppose.

Anyways, at the end, I dreamed of this huge tsunami-like “solid water” that the rivers suddenly changed into. The people taken away from it were screaming. My mom said, “put something on your head, we’ll be dragged out, in the sun, for a while”. I couldn’t find a hat, so I just put on my head… some underpants. Soon later, the “solid water” had moved up to our apartment, and it took us away too. Some quick thinking on my part was “if I could take one thing with me, what should it be?”. So I grabbed a knife (if anything, “Survivorman” on TV has shown that all you need is a knife. The rest is just skill and knowledge).

Soon enough we were dragged away by the solid water. I asked my mom, who was dragged away along my aunt, if she knew what was happening, and she replied “yes”. Apparently, the knowledge that we lived on a ship, has survived among a few of us (not everyone knew it/believed it). I started crying in my sleep, thinking “we’ve arrived, we’ve arrived!”. To top my melodramatic dream, there was actually a music score accompanying the whole thing! I guess the filmmaking “audio is as important” moniker, has been engraved deep in my subconscious, enough to make me have a soundtrack in my dreams!

Anyways, amidst all the excitement of “arriving”, I woke up.

This dream today reminded me the 4-5 “past life” regression sessions I had in the late ’90s (I wrote about these here before). While all of these regressions featured different “life stories” in different times/places (and in one occasion a different planet), the ending was always the same. Supposedly, after we die, when we’re ready to leave, we go through a vortex that hangs above our dead heads, and we go through it. Soon, we see the Earth becoming smaller and smaller. Eventually, we reach a waiting place, that some weird lifeforms are running it. Religious people would call these “angels”, I suppose, but I’m not religious.

When your turn has come, you appear before a judging panel, and you answer for yourself “how well you did in your life”. After you gave your opinion to them, you become your own judge, as you re-play your whole life in front of you. Then, you break down and cry, for all the bad things you did while alive. Supposedly, each individual also has 1-2 very specific goals in their life. These goals must be achieved. Being “good” is only half of the story.

So you choose your next life, based on what you must learn, or repeat your goals if you didn’t achieve them in the previous life. You can choose the sex, place, major events that must happen to you (good or bad), so you can learn via them. And this repeats many times, until you “graduate” (I guess some religious people would call this “nirvana,” but I’m not religious). In each life, you only take with you the “juice” of your previous experiences, not the memories. And you’re usually spending your life with the same key people over and over. For example, your father in one life, can be your wife in another. Role-switching is common.

I don’t believe in any of that of course (neither I believed in it back then), although it was fun to be part of such an “experiment.” I mean, why not, since there was no harm done. It’s interesting to think though that if there’s a shred of truth in it, then it would make sense as to what a Type III Civilization would do to educate their children. Think about it.

Instead of educating them via traditional methods, or via pre-conditioning their brains, they educate them via real life lessons. Each consciousness (aka “soul” for the religious, but I’m not religious) is transferred into the body of a primitive species, and let them live whole lives as such. In their terms of time, this whole life experience might only take a few minutes. So they might be able to “graduate” from this life school, within a few days or weeks of enrolling, but having acquired hundreds of life experiences as different species, learning all that you must learn to be a trustworthy member of a Type-III Civilization, in regards to your peers, and the other not-so-fortunate species in the universe.

It’s like virtual reality, but designed to teach youngsters how to become adult beings, fast. Some religious people would call this a process of “becoming God”, but I’m not religious. I would see it more like a school, where you can’t cheat your way around.

I mean, the last thing we want in our galaxy is a little brat, with super-advanced technology, blowing up whole planets just for fun. Right? Right??

Um, sorry, I did not read your post fully first. As to your soul-tripping, it is a nice self-calming thought, but whether it is true or not, I still cannot watch at half-burned Japanese or Vietnamese children or at cold-blood shot Iraqi men. These nice theories, if accepted by the masses, can result in a bloodshed just because “we will all reincarnate in the future” and because “this is just a fucking body”.

This is not true at all. Re-incarnation as an idea is not new, some established religions believe in it. Their believers were not the ones who half-burned Japanese or Vietnamese children or cold-blood shot Iraqi men. In fact, it was the believers of a monotheistic religion, who don’t believe in re-incarnation, that did what you described.

And besides, if any of that is true, then it makes it even more important to be righteous in your Earthly time. Otherwise, you’ll never graduate. And I’m sure you don’t want to end up cleaning up the toilets of the other Type III Civilization citizens for the rest of your life. 😉

Although I’d agree that it’s best to not know “the truth”, because it defeats the whole learning purpose. It’s best to do your best because you feel you must do your best, rather than because you want to graduate a day earlier. However, even if you knew the truth, it wouldn’t change much. You’d still have to deal with others on Earth, who would ground you down to the Earthly reality. Sooner or later, you’d have to deal with your daily problems at hand. And there’s nothing you can do to stop the connection, apart from suicide. But what would that bring you anyway? You’d end up back here anyway, and will be forced to act under the same circumstances, until you get it right.

So basically, this “after-life” thing being real or not, it changes absolutely nothing at the end for us. If anything, it’d help us be grounded, rather than make us expect 40 virgins, or tea parties with Jesus.

“A new religion popped up calling itself ‘Realization’. It started telling people that they owed it to themselves to experience everything, good or bad, fair and foul, because the hereafter was just a long remembrance of what you did on Earth. So do it, they said, that’s what you’re put on Earth for, do it, or you’ll be shortchanged in the afterlife. Gratify every desire, satisfy every lust, explore your blackest depths. Live high, die high. It was wacky. The real fanatics formed torture clubs, and wrote encyclopedias on pain, and collected tortures like a housewife would collect recipes. At each meeting, a member would voluntarily present himself as a victim, and they’d kill him in the most excruciating damned ways they could find. They wanted to experience the absolute most in pleasure and pain. And I guess they did.

But then came the crusher. When the Crazy Years were in full swing, they announced that there was a hereafter, sure enough; but not for everyone.”

Yeah, what about it? This has nothing to do with what I wrote. That was obviously a cult, with their own beliefs. Their game. As I explained above, the “past life regression” interpretation of the after-life I mentioned, has nothing to do with this. If anything, it’s all about becoming a *just* person, after many lives/experiences, not the opposite. What you mentioned with Realization instead, is just chaos. Not the same.

I posted the above comment before I updated the page and saw your reply. The quotation I posted is not exactly about the concept of graduation, but it also related to the idea that whatever you do on Earth may not in fact matter than much. Human life is just a glimpse in something much bigger. I guess it indulges us (us, as humanity) to do whatever we want on a pretext that this all is just a split-second moment in the life of the Universe, and the Sun will die anyway. Oh, well. If you haven’t read this novel, read it. Sheckley is my favorite sci-fi author.

Ok, I agree, a different idea. Sheckley makes the idea of hereafter a matter of existing in different forms. No matter what you do you will “graduate” to the next stage. Or not (there are some conditions, but they are technical, not because you’ve done something “bad”). Yours is a matter of “graduating”, and as such of “doing good” to reach the… um… Heaven? So who is saying what is “good” and what is “bad”? Who is setting the moral standards? And how this is different from religion?

No. To reach adulthood. To be taken seriously by the others of your species.

>So who is saying what is “good” and what is “bad”?

According to some scientists, humans are pre-conditioned on ethics. This is why atheists don’t go around killing people all day. In this scenario, we get born pre-conditioned, so we know if what we do is good or bad. As to who pre-conditioned us, could be Darwin, or it could be the moral standards set by that Type III Civilization. But probably Darwin.

>And how this is different from religion?

It’s not really. Without proof, it just has to swim in the realm of faith. Which is why I’m not a believer. The only difference is that it’d be a more modern and far-out religion compared to the older Gods-based ones. But that’s just a technicality.

If I believe in something is that I don’t believe anything. I’m an atheist, a non-believer of any kind. But during my 20s, I did try to find out who I am, and these past life regression sessions were just a few of the things I tried.

“If I believe in something is that I don’t believe anything. I’m an atheist, a non-believer of any kind.”

As far as I understand, an atheist doesn’t believe there is a god, so _does_ believe something.

Wouldn’t it be more correct to be an agnostic, who just doesn’t know?

Regarding myself, I tend to be with Buddha.

He once was asked “Is there a god?” and replied “No, there isn’t”.

Then another man came with the same question and Buddha replied “Yes, there is.”

When a third man came with the same question, Buddha didn’t say anything and just closed his eyes. The questionner did so, too, then after a few minutes opened his eyes again, thanked Buddha and left.

Asked about this, Buddha replied:
“The first man was a theist, a believer in god, so I had to tell him that there is no god, to destroy his belief. The second was an atheist, who did not believe in god, so I had to tell him there is god, to destroy his belief. The third man did not believe anything, and just really wanted to know, so I showed him the way.”

>Wouldn’t it be more correct to be an agnostic, who just doesn’t know?

No, I’m an atheist. As for the word “belief”, you twisted it. The fact that I don’t believe in God does not make me a believer. The specific word is twisted a lot by believers to fight back atheists. They’re using semantics to strengthen their position. Don’t do that. It’s cheap.

I do know that several theorems are correct, without true mathematical proof. Sometimes, we need to put our brains to work and use logic, rather than live in the limbo of “without direct proof, it can go either way”. In the subject of God, I’m convinced that it’s a figment of people’s imagination and fears. God holds less stable ground than these math theorems. So, no, I won’t play the ball game of “let’s find a middle ground, and agree on agnosticism”.

Besides, if I’m to believe that there might, or might not be a God, why not also believe in ghosts, UFOs, and vampires? If anything, regarding UFOs, there have been a lot of strong photographic/video evidence, and recently, decorated ex-military said that they’re real. As you can see, by living in limbo, it has a slippery slope effect. So I prefer to not live in limbo, and instead, use logic to figure out if something could be real or not. And God fell into the non-real category. In fact, God is way less likely to exist than ET UFOs.

For an atheist you seem to look too hard for “behaving properly” and for “graduation” instead of simply accepting that after your death the atoms of your body will join zillons of other atoms in the Universe. You want to have a feel-good theory that looks like science, but that essentially would be a religion.

Michael, this is the second comment from you today where you try to piss me off.

How do I “try too hard”? I don’t believe any of it! These were simply things I saw under hypnosis, over 10 years ago. And I simply lay them out for you here, for your reading pleasure. This doesn’t mean that I believe any of it! But IF there was even a small chance of truth in there, I’d still try to find a more scientific explanation as to what is what, since the hypnosis guide was trying to make me believe that these were angels!

And yes, I’m an atheist. When we die, we die for good, “and the atoms of our body joins zillons of other atoms in the Universe.”

And it’s zillions, not zillons. Like the terabytes are not terrabytes (referring to your first useless comment in the other thread).